Podcast: How Gringo director Nash Edgerton made a cannabis comedy, never touched the stuff

From streaming to screen: Amazon Studios’ Gringo stars Selma’s David Oyelowo as a hapless courier for a ethics-challenged corporation.

While Gringo, a new slapstick comedy out this week via Amazon Studios, rides the well-trod trope of a mega corporation up to no good, there’s a modern and timely twist: they’re manufacturing cannabis pills, called Cannabax, down in Mexico. Totally off the books.

Gringo is chock-full of Grade-A goofiness — weird diatribes about space exploration, kidnappings gone awry, dirty Mexican slang, awkward office sex — but at its heart is some genuine commentary on the ethics of the exploding cannabis industry, and Big Business’ growing role in it.

The film, which stars David Oyelowo (Selma) and Charlize Theron (Atomic Blonde, Mad Max: Fury Road), was directed by Australian stunt-double-turned-director Nash Edgerton. We caught up with Edgerton to learn more about how he came to direct the film, what he thinks about cannabis legalization, his own history with cannabis and more.

For the juicy details, tune in to our conversation with Edgerton, in this week’s episode of the Hash podcast, below.